The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched its Data-Driven Discovery of Models program that aims to automate aspects of data science to help non-experts construct their own empirical models.
DARPA said Friday D3M looks to address a data science expertise gap the agency says is reflected by lack of results for predictive questions among popular search engines.
“The construction of empirical models today is largely a manual process, requiring data experts to translate stochastic elements, such as weather and traffic, into models that engineers and scientists can then ask questions of,” said Wade Shen, a DARPA program manager in the information innovation office.
“We believe it’s possible to automate certain aspects of data science, and specifically to have machines learn from prior example how to construct new models.”
Shen added D3M aims to cover the basics of model development to open opportunities for human intelligence among users with no data science background.
DARPA noted it projects a deficit of 140,000 to 190,000 data scientists globally in 2016.
